


A Revolutionary Solider on Mars

by Winne Grimm (Georgie_Likes_Toast)



Series: A Revolutionary Solider on Mars [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda, The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: Aaron Burr is Mitch Henderson, Abigail Adams is Annie Montrose, Alexander Hamilton is Rich Purnel, Angelica Schuyler is Merlissa Lewis, Dark Humor, David Ramsey is Dr. Chris Beck, Eliza Schuyler is Mindy Park, F/F, F/M, George Washington is Teddy Sanders, Hercules Mulligan is Rick Martinez, I have a book and a plan, James Madison is Venkat Kapoor, John Laurens is Mark Watney, King George is Guo Ming, Lafayette is Alex Vogel, Lams - Freeform, M/M, Major Character Injury, Maria Lewis is Beth Johansen, Maria Reynolds is Maria Lewis, Minor Alexander Hamilton/Elizabeth "Eliza" Schuyler, Near Death Experiences, Nonbinary Marquis de Lafayette, Paul Revere is Bruce Ng, Samuel Seabury is Zhu Tao, Swearing, THERE'S NO SUCIDE, Talks of Sucide, YOU DONT NEED TO KNOW THE MARTIAN TO UNDERSTAND, assumed major character death, but Sam and King George are still British, gallow's humor, jeffmads - Freeform, macaroni and sneeze, major cursing, sucidal idealisation, sucidal thoughts, the martian - Freeform, those are for reference
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 22:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15349995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Georgie_Likes_Toast/pseuds/Winne%20Grimm
Summary: John Laurens is the 17th person to walk on Mars, and will surely be the first to die there. After being thought dead and left stranded 6 days into his mission, John is left with no way to signal Earth that he's alive. And even if he could, it would be years before a rescue could arrive, and by then his supplies would be long gone. Chances are he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or his own human error are much more likely to kill him first. Armed with nothing but his ingenuity, his engineering skills- and gallows humor that proved to be one of his greatest source of strength. John would do anything in his dogged quest to stay alive. It isn't long before it is discovered John didn't die on Sol 6 and everyone comes together to bring him home.It's not necessary to read or watch the Martian to understand this. Title subject to change.





	A Revolutionary Solider on Mars

**Author's Note:**

> This is kinda a dark fic? I don't know. Obviously being stranded alone on an entire planet would be enough to drive anyone to the extreme. John talks about suicide, and spoiler alert: there will be a point where he says he's done. He doesn't die. However, this could be triggering to some people so be careful. There's also a lot of swearing in this fic so be careful with this as well. I can't really think of anything else, but if you ever find something triggering, please let me know and I will tag it for you and anyone else who might find it damaging. So sorry in advance.

Sol 6  
Where to start? Where to start?  
Probably be good to start with an analysis of my situation. Is that what they tell you to do first in crisis training? Maybe it’s cry. I guess i already cried a little does that count? Wait shit. Log, plan, cry. I guess that’s a plan so plan, log, plan, cry? I don’t know. Analysis of the situation:  
I’m pretty much fucked.  
That’s my considered opinion.  
Fucked.  
Fucked  
FUCKED

Six days into what should of been the BEST month of my life and it’s turned into a nightmare. Probably worse than a nightmare  
Maybe this is just nightmare  
Man, I hope this is just a nightmare  
HEY IF THIS IS JUST NIGHTMARE, NOW WOULD BE A REALLY GREAT TIME TO WAKE UP!!!!!!!  
Not a literal nightmare then.  
A metaphorical one for sure.  
… I don’t even know who will read this. I guess someone will find this eventually. Maybe a hundred years from now, after we’ve colonized Mars. If it’s a hundred years from now, and you’re just now finding this, fuck you too NASA. I give you my life and you repay me by not finding my last recordings on Mars.

Oh I guess I should mention, I’m definitely not a ghost. Still very much alive (currently) and with only one extra hole in me. Do you know why? Because I didn’t die on sol 6. I’ll probably die here anyway. Just not on sol 6. Certainly the rest of the crew thought I did. Let me stress, I DO NOT blame them, so don’t think y’all can either. I’ll fight you!  
Huh, maybe they’ll be a national day of mourning for me, and my wikipedia page will say “John Laurens is the the 17th man to have walked on Mars and the only living thing to have died there.” Isn’t that a nice legacy. HEY NASA, you better have gave my siblings some hella good payouts, okay? Because I'm sure they did, you’re welcome for your free education via your big brother John, sorry I had to die to actually be able to give it you. Please grow up to be whatever the fuck you want and tell dad to go fuck himself while you do. 

I guess I should explain something explain the Ares program for anyone reading this that doesn’t know what is (future children, you’re welcome for this primary resource!). Basically, we got to Mars, mankind expanded the horizons of humanity, blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda. Ares 1 went to Mars (Ben Franklin is the fucking coolest, mkay? Sorry other A1 crew. You didn’t take me out to breakfast. Assholes), came back heros. Got parades, and fame, and the love of the world. Ares 2 did the same thing else where on Mars. They came back got a firm handshake, a “job well done”, and a hot cup of coffee. Oh coffee… Hold on. Ah that hit the spot. I can do that because Schyler isn’t here to yell at me for it. If you didn’t want me to drink all the damn coffee you shouldn’t of ditched me on Mars, ma’am. JOKING!!!!  
Anyways, (not-god-dammit John, focus), Ares 3. That’s my mission. Well not MY mission. Commander Angelicaaaaaa Schuyler was in charge. I’m actually the lowest ranking member of the crew. I would only be in command if I was the only one left.  
Wouldn’t you know it? I’m in command.  
Please cue who let the dogs out? Right here. Thanks.

I wonder if this will be found before the rest of the crew dies of old age. I assume (don’t worry I know, I know: assuming makes an ass out of you and me) they made it back to Earth safely. YOU BETTER HAVE MADE IT BACK TO EARTH SAFELY. HERC YOU BETTER NOT BE SLACKING MAN!! YOU TOO LAF, NO SIDE TRIPS TO VENUS!!!  
Uh… If you’re reading this, guys, gals, and my non-binary pal: It wasn’t your fault. You did what you had to do. In your position I would've done the same thing. I don’t blame you, and I’m glad you survived. 

I guess I should explain how Ares missions work for any idiots who don’t already know. We get to Earth orbit the normal way, through an ordinary ship to the Hermes, a really heckin expensive spaceship that NASA only built one of. All Ares missions are going to use the Hermes to get to and from Mars. 

Once we get to the Hermes, four additional unmanned missions bring us fuel and supplies while we prep for our little trip. Once everything is a clear, we set out for Mars. Gone are the days of heavy chemical fuel burns and trans-Mars injection orbits.  
The Hermes is powered by ion engines. They throw argon out the rear of the ship to get a teeny amount of acceleration. The thing is it doesn’t take much reactant mass, so a little argon (with the help of a nuclear reactor to power things) let us accelerate constantly all the way there. Turns out you can get going fairly fast with a lot of patience with that thing.

I could regal y’all with tales from how we had a grand, jolly time on our way here but I won’t. I don’t wanna relieve it right now. Suffice to say we all got here in piece after 124 days.  
Then we all got in the Mars Descent Vehicle (real creative NASA, thank you) which will henceforth be referred to simply as the MDV to get to the surface. It’s essentially a big tin can with some thrusters and a couple of parachutes that’s only purpose was to get the six of us to the surface of Mars without any of us dying. It succeeded.

Now here comes the FUN part: having all of our shit there in advance.  
A total of 14 unmanned missions deposit everything we need for surface operations. They try to get them in the same general area and do a reasonably good job. The supplies aren’t nearly as fragile and thus can be hit the ground a lot harder. Which gives them the tendency to bounce. A LOT. Of course they don’t send us to Mars until they confirm that all of the shit made it to surface and that the containers didn’t breach. Start to finish, including the supply missions, a Mars mission takes about three years. Fun Fact: Supplies for my mission were in route when the Ares 2 crew was coming home. Most effective way of doing it and creates more hype for that mission. I do say me and Miss. Maria Lewis made pretty good poster children. Haha take that you bigots. 

Course the most important piece of equipment is the Mars Ascent Vehicle (which will also only be called the MAV from now on). Only piece of equipment that get soft landed (as opposed to that fucking balloon bounce bullshit. Haha. Alteration for the win.) It’s how we get from the surface back to the Hermes. It’s in constant communication with Houston and if a single thing is wrong with it, the mission gets scrapped and we would of gone around Mars without stopping and we would've gone straight home. Which for the record would of been lame as shit and might of actually been for the best this time. Oh well, that’s life. It sucks then you die. 

 

The MAV is actually pretty cool! Because of a neat seat of chemical reactions due to the Martian atmosphere,for every kilogram of hydrogen you bring to Mars, you can create 13 kilograms of fuel, which is a slow process. It actually takes 24 months to fill the tank which is why the MAV was reached Mars long before we did. Actually Aries 2 landed it for us, like we did for Aries 4. GOOD LUCK 4!!!!!! TRY NOT TO LEAVE ANYONE ON MARS, HUH?

You might imagine that I was disappointed I discovered it was gone. :( Rip me.  
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway, that’s how Ares missions work. Cool, huh? LMAO fuck you. (You future children are gonna have a hell of a time sensoring these logs. Sorry kiddos. I like swearing. And I think it lows stress levels. Whatever. My point is I’m gonna cuss and you’re gonna deal. Please don’t get emotionally attached to me. I’m gonna die here. Don’t make friends with dead people. Oh and since this is my “diary” I totes give you permission to read it. Just sayin).

It was a seriously stupid series (again: alteration for the win!!) of events that lead me to almost dying and being trapped on Mars. And an even stupider sequence that lead to my survival. Ares missions are designed to handle 150 kph winds in case of BIG sandstorms. Soooo, quite understandably Houston was a teeny weeny little concerned when we got smacked with winds pushing 175 kmp. We all got in our flight space suits and huddled in the middle of the Hab, in case it lost pressure. The Hab wasn’t really a problem. Remember how I said that the MAV was the most important part of all this? It’s also got some of the most delicate parts in it. Since you know, it’s a spaceship. It’s designed to handle some wind but not 175 kmh ones that lasted for an hour and a half. If that piece of shit tipped, we’d all be stuck down here. Glad it’s just me. Promise. Cross my heart and hope to die (and I’m going too). Maybe make shit more resistant if you got time NASA. OOOOOOOOOh and make it so the secondary and temiltarty systems don’t need the MAV to talk to someone or give us as extra satellite? 

So despite nobody wanting to call off a 30 day mission after six days, NASA pulled the the plug. For that we had to go from the Hab to the MAV, which was risky, but y'know, what choice did we have? Everyone made it but me.

Our main communication dish, the one that communicated the HAB to the Hermes acted as a parachute and was ripped away from the HAB and was sent flying towards us. After it smashed through the reception antenna array. As that mess flew through the air one of the long, slim antennae slammed into me. It was the most painful thing I’ve ever experience (and I’ve been shot… course that was a flesh wound but what-fucking-ever). Imagine it’s what it would feel like if you got somebody to swing a sword full force through butter, but you know in a small surface area so more painful. That’s what happened to me. YAY ME I”M SO LUCKY!!!! Anyway it tore through my suit and consequently my side. I vaguely remember having the air ripped out of me and my ears popping painfully from the sudden loss of pressure. The last thing I remember is Maria reaching helplessly out towards me. Excuse me, I’m gonna go cry now. I can’t follow a 3 step plan, not-god-dammit, no wonder this all went to shit. I’ve always been bad at following directions. Not that I control the weather but… ugh.

Kay I cried. You can’t tell the difference though. But on with the story!!!!!! I woke up to my oxygen alarms blaring. A steady, obnoxious beeping that roused me from a deep and profound desire to just fucking die already. The storm had abated by then and I was laying face down and half buried in the dirt. I had wondered why I wasn’t dead but I figured it was because the way I was lying pushed the antennae, which was stopped by my pelvis after punching its hole in the suit and me of course. Luckily it was only one hole. Also luckily I landed face down after being knocked back quite aways and rolling down a steep hill. The singular breach and the upside downness and the fact that that put the antennae at a strongly oblique angle, put enough torque on the antennae, which created a weak seal. That I bleed into, the liquid part boiling off, leaving a gunk that helped strengthen the seal, and more blood trickled down to keep doing it and that eventually brought the leak down to something the suit could mange!! Yay!! So after that all it had to do is trickle in new air to replace what was lost. 

After awhile, I had burned through all the CO2 filters in my suit. That’s the real problem with life support is getting rid of the CO2. In the Hab we have the Oxygenator to break down the CO2 and give back the air but it’s too large to fit in a suit so those rely on expendable filters that use a simple chemical absorption process. I’d been asleep long enough that those were all expended and the suit had converted to bloodletting. Which means the suit purposely expelled air from my suit into the atmosphere and back filled with nitrogen, which quick ran out, leaving only pure oxygen. Which it filled my suit with as it was the only way to keep me alive. So now I ran the risk of dying from oxygen toxicity, as the excessive amounts of oxygen would burn up my nervous system, lungs, and eyes. What that be ironic death from someone with a leaky spacesuit: to much oxygen. I can imagine the headline now: Astronaut John Laurens, believed dead on sol 6, actually died Sol 7, after inhaling too much oxygen. I wonder if y’all would think it was intentional? It wouldn’t be. I’d go overdose on morphine first. I mean provided I got back the HAB but spoiler alert: I did. Are your minds blown? I hope so.Every step of the way would of been filled with alarms, alerts, and warning, but it was the obnoxious beeping of the low oxygen alert that woke me up. 

Luckily the sheer volume of training that goes into a Ares of mission is insane. I’d spent a week training for this back on Earth training for this, so I knew what to do. I had to carefully reach up to the side of my helmet for the breach kit, which is just a funnel with a value at the small end and some really REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEALLY sticky resin on the big end. The value lets the air out so we can get an airtight seal. Then you seal the valve and congratulations you are no longer leaking. Good job!!!!!!! I’d apologize for all the sarcasm but I enjoy it and creates a good imaginary conversation in my head, so fuck you I’m going to keep doing it. 

NOW THIS SOMETHING i ABSOLUTELY DO NOT RECOMMEND DOING UNLESS LIKE ME YOU HAVE A LEAKY SPACE SUIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For me I had to rip the atanna out so that I could seal the breach. Which is bad because the hole that was already in me just lost it’s plug and was now bleeding more, which is why YOU SHOULD NOT FUCKING DO THIS but I didn’t anyway because I’m an asshole. And when I said rip I meant, rip. I pulled that fucker out fast. Which 1. Made me dizzy from the sudden pressure loss (oh did I mention pulling the antenna out also broke the weak seal that was formed by the antenna and my blood) and 2. made my side scream in agony. BUT I sealed the suit, so who’s the real winner here? STILL NOT ME BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

The suit was still backfilling with oxygen, but it was only at 85%, so I’d be fine as long as I wasn’t in it very long. But for reference, Earth’s atmosphere is only 21% percent, so that’s pretty not good. Anywaaaaaaaay knowing that I climbed an entire mountain (not really it was that hill I mentioned earlier, and found the MAV gone (that’s so sad, Alexa play despacito, boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo) but the HAB was still intact (yay!). I knew I was screwed, but you know, might as well die in the comfort of my own home!! So I stumbled back to the HAB and through the airlock. As soon as it equalized I threw my helmet off. Not literally through because I could still be useful for something, like overdosing on oxygen. Haha not really because I have morphine and that’s a better way to goooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. 

I quickly took off the rest of my suit (good suit for keeping my alive!) and got my first good look at the the injury. Not to bad, all things considering. And with the handy dandy basic medical training that me and the rest of the crew received back on Earth I knew how to treat it. Thanks NASA!!!!!!! Self surgery sucks ass though. A dash of local anesthetic, integration of the wound, and 9 stitches later, I was almost good as new!!!!!! I mean I’ll be taking some antibiotics for a couple weeks, and there’s always the risk of tearing the stitches, but it could be worse. I could be dead on the surface of Mars! Lmao, am I funny yet? No? Good. Like I said don't get attached to me I am literally going to DIE!!!!!! Fuck, I’m gonna go cry again. 

After that, even though I knew it was hopeless, I tried firing up the communications array. Except, the main dish smacked into the reception antenna and harpooned me so it was down. Obviously. There’s two back up comm systems, but they were can only talk to the MAV which is gone, so they don’t work.  
There’s no way from to contact the Hermes or NASA to tell them I’m still alive, and even if I could, it’s not like it would do me any good. The MAV is the only way out of here. The only other one is the one for Aries IV, which is 32,00 km, away. Oooooooh kilometers. As commander of this mission, I declare that I don’t have to use the metric system anymore. Unless I want. That’s 2,000 miles. Besides even if I went and found the satellite, rigged up repairs, which would take weeks, it would be to late. In an abort, Hermes leaves atmosphere within 24 hours. And that’s only if my jerry rig would be able to contact Hermes at all. 

I just checked my suit for the hell of it, and I found that the antenna tore through my bio-monitor computer. No wonder the guys thought I was dead: they would of seen my pressure drop to zero instantly, followed by a flatline in my bio-signs. Then add watching me tumble down a tear with an antenna sticking out of my side in the middle of a sandstorm. How could they have not with evidence like that? Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo not their fault. 

They might of had a brief discussion about recovering my body, might of even searched for it. But regulations are clear. In the event a crewman dies on Mars, they stay on Mars. Leaving his body reduces weight and conserves fuel, which gives Mulligan a larger margin of error for return thrust. No point giving that up for sentimentality. *insert eyeroll here* Fuckin NASA. That’s not y’alls fault either guys. 

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo that’s the gaint pile of crap I landed myself in this time, y’all. I’m stranded on Mars, with no way to communicate with Hermes or Earth, everyone thinks I’m dead, and I’m in a HAB that was designed to last 31 days. 

If the oxygenator breaks down, I suffocate. If the water reclaimer breaks, I die of thirst. If the Hab breaches, I just kinda… explode. And even if none of that happens, I’ll eventually run out of food and starve to death. (Well not actually since, as I stated numerous times now. I have morphine, and I’ll use that if it comes to that. Well that doesn’t solve exploding but yeah. I won’t suffer, at least. Some comfort to my family, I hope.)

So yeah, I’m fucked.  
-JL


End file.
